What games are you playing now?

July 6th, 2012, 04:29

My Stalker saves somehow got corrupted and since I can't progress to the next main quest area I lost 10 hours worth of gameplay.

Currently thinking about what to play next. Since that I don't have much hunger for post-apoc after the Stalker disappointment my Fallout 3 & New Vegas playthroughs will be postponed. Codex's review persuaded me to try Risen 2 only once it hits the bargain bin.

Looking at the release list it seems that the only thing I'm willing to invest time in is games with light RPG features rather than a full blown RPG. I won't touch Skyrim until the GOTY edition is available and with DA:O and Witcher 2 still fresh in my memory I think the only major RPGs I'm missing are the Mass Effects (not in the mood for apparently disappointing trilogies) and the recent Divinities although I'm not sure if I can pick one the new ones without ever having played DivDiv and Beyond Divinity.

Going back to lighter cross-genre options from what I've read the ones that bill are Alpha Protocol, Deus Ex HR, Bioshock 2 (?) or even the praised Batmans. Is there another I should be aware of?

--

I'd just like to interject here and point out that I'm not going to say anything to spoil the mood, Chief. I'll just float here and watch. Don't mind me, just sitting here, floating and watching, that's me.

Originally Posted by Kostaz
My Stalker saves somehow got corrupted and since I can't progress to the next main quest area I lost 10 hours worth of gameplay.

Ouch.. that truly sucks. I plan on doing a Stalker playthrough in the near future, and I'll be backing up my saves after hearing that.

Originally Posted by Kostaz
Codex's review persuaded me to try Risen 2 only once it hits the bargain bin.

Don't rely on their review to decide whether or not you want to play Risen 2. Download the demo and decide for yourself.

Originally Posted by Kostaz
I think the only major RPGs I'm missing are the Mass Effects (not in the mood for apparently disappointing trilogies) and the recent Divinities although I'm not sure if I can pick one the new ones without ever having played DivDiv and Beyond Divinity.

I'm playing ME1 now and loving it. I strongly recommend giving it a run if you're in the mood for a Sci-fi RPG. Of course the fact that there's very little else to choose from in that sub-genre might have something to do with that.

As far as the Divinities go, I'd start with DD and then play Dragon Knight Saga.
Don't worry about playing Beyond Divinity…it's mediocre compared to the other titles, and it's not directly tied to them anyways.

Originally Posted by JDR13
Ouch.. that truly sucks. I plan on doing a Stalker playthrough in the near future, and I'll be backing up my saves after hearing that.

I was told on the Stalker forums that restarting the game with Zone Restoration Project rather than Complete was the safest route I could take. Might want to keep that in mind.

Don't rely on their review to decide whether or not you want to play Risen 2. Download the demo and decide for yourself.

I've been reluctant to fire up the demo because I've gotten the impression that R2 is at its weakest early in the game and the I'm afraid along with the combat heavy nature of demos that it's going to drive me off more than any negative review could.

As far as the Divinities go, I'd start with DD and then play Dragon Knight Saga.
Don't worry about playing Beyond Divinity…it's mediocre compared to the other titles, and it's not directly tied to them anyways.

Can't say I'm in the mood for isometric despite knowing that DD is considered a classic. What about the new Deus EX, is DE1 required to understand the lore or enjoy HR?

--

I'd just like to interject here and point out that I'm not going to say anything to spoil the mood, Chief. I'll just float here and watch. Don't mind me, just sitting here, floating and watching, that's me.

DE:HR actually takes place before the events in the original game. Imo, you could play either one first.

You've never played the original though? It's the best of the series and a must-play for any RPG fan. I recommend installing the New Vision mod when you play it. It remasters most of the textures, but it doesn't make any changes to the rest of the game.

Originally Posted by Kostaz
Can't say I'm in the mood for isometric despite knowing that DD is considered a classic. What about the new Deus EX, is DE1 required to understand the lore or enjoy HR?

I'm not much of a fan of (simplistic point & click) isometric games either but Divinity is a game that any RPG lover should probably at least try at some point. It's a Diablo clone on the surface but under the hood you'll find a very interesting character development system, an interactive world/environment and lots of well written humorous dialogue. Certainly a highly recommended game.
A deeper knowledge of the game (or BD), the lore or the universe is not at all required to play DKS, however. I played and finished DKS a few months back and that was nearly a decade after DD came out so my memory of the events in the first game was sketchy at best. Still didn't feel like I missed anything. DKS can very well be regarded as a stand-alone title. There are some (optional) lore books in DKS with references to past events but it is certainly not required to read them.
What I'm trying to say is don't let any sentiment like "but I haven't played DD or BD so I'm not going to enjoy DKS as much as I might if I had" hold you back from playing DKS. DKS is a great game on its own. If you feel like it, go for it.

I finally had the chance to sit down with two of my friends to play Trine, a coop-ready sidescrolling physics-based platform puzzlegame. We had a blast. Oldtimers may wish to compare the game to Lost Vikings where you need to use three heroes special abilities together to reach to the end of each level. I played the Rogue, who can jump high, shoot arrows and use a grappling hook. My friends played the mage who can summon boxes and bridges that can also be levitated around, and the knight who can smash and throw stuff while blocking fireballs with his shield.

This is possibly the most beautiful game ever made, which isn't something I say lightly. Every scene is artwork and the game alone makes up an argument that games can be art. Just look at the screenshots and see what I mean. The audio is equally great, the music reminds me a bit about Lord of the Rings and perfectly fits this enchanted tale. Sometimes I just wanted to stay for a moment and absorb the visuals. Definitely recommended for those who have 2 friends to play with, their PC connected to the TV and 3 joypads.

-- Mankind must put an end to war or war will put an end to mankind. - John F Kennedy
An eye for an eye, and soon the whole world is blind. - Mahatma Gandhi
The world is my country. To do good is my religion. My mind is my own church. This simple creed is all we need to enjoy peace on earth. - Thomas Paine

I have spent the latest days with Dead Island which is a mixed bag. The ambition of the game amazes me, yet it unfortunately falls short in "fun" compared to Borderlands which is the first game I would compare it to. But since there's just 2 games like this on the market I say Dead Island is worth it for those who already played Borderlands with friends and enjoyed it and crave something more despite some flaws.

The first thing to note is how detailed the maps are despite being a sandbox game. The areas are very detailed, every bit of the beach, every bungalow, every corner is handcrafted. It pays off to have an extra look at the in-game graphics rather than following the minimap as you can almost navigate by it.

Dead Island is a beat-em up rather than a shooter and is best played as such. You spend most of the time fighting zombies in melee and it's worth to practice combos with doubleswings, uppercuts, throwing your weapon and using the mighty foot. Zombies have different behavior and learning their pattern also gives you a hint on how to counter their attacks. Still, if you meet a group of the fast-running "Infected" you may be toast.

Being an action-rpg the game is packed with weapons that are also customizeable unlike Borderlands, so it's also valuable to collect a large amount of "trash" along the road, yet since the weapons break apart so fast you tend to have 4-5 weapons at a time that you replace all the time, so I never felt like I found special and loved "über items" like in other RPG's with randomized loot. In effect, new weapons rarely felt rewarding.

You gan levels but you do not level up as quickly as you do in other games and new levels rarely give you new stuff, just a tiny percentage boost to what you already got, so i rarely felt the pull to get just another level.

Another problem is that many of the quests feels like a waste of time. You run very long distances back-and-forth to do quests and some areas are both annoying and hard since you are overrun with infected all the time.

The effect is that you do not get that rinse-and-repeat feel you got in Borderlands, instead the game can end up frustrating and stressful in a bad way, like when you try to find the ladder up on a roof you need to get to while constantly attacked by screaming infected, dying 3-4 times while just trying to understand what to do.

-- Mankind must put an end to war or war will put an end to mankind. - John F Kennedy
An eye for an eye, and soon the whole world is blind. - Mahatma Gandhi
The world is my country. To do good is my religion. My mind is my own church. This simple creed is all we need to enjoy peace on earth. - Thomas Paine

I hadn't played any of Vogel's games before… shameful, I know. With my pc being away for repairs, I decided to take the chance to rectify that, so I finally started playing Avadon on my iPad.

Why Avadon? Because it was the only one available on the iPad when I bought it a few months back. Why I bought it for the iPad? Because for some reason I just don't feel like playing a game like that (simple to use and visually humble) on pc anymore. Why? Because I'm weird like that.

Without having payed anything else the game still feels very familiar: it's pretty much exactly what I expected. I see where the criticisms about it come from as well but, to be honest, it all just fits together, the game just works. I find it intriguing, with good pacing, solid atmosphere and overall very enjoyable. In fact I can't even remember when was the last time I enjoyed an RPG as much.

-- "I am not interested in good; I am interested in new, even if this includes the possibility of it's being evil"
(LaMonte Young, 1962)

I love Spellforce II, been playing it again for a couple days. It's like Myth II, or Battlezone II, or any other quirky sequel i hold near and dear to my heart over the original.

Spellforce is just the right amount of action-RPG and RTS, i can spend an 8 hour shift in this awesome little high fantasy playground. You'd thing the game's RPG side-quest lineage would be nothing but stupid fed-ex quests, then you find yourself running around w/ someone's dog named Cyclops looking for someone and investigating a cult. Great game!

Have my eye on Faith in Destiny, 13 bucks on Steam. That said, I never played Dragon Storm the original expansion. Maybe I should shift gears and play thru that instead of re-playing the original SF2 again, but the original is just too good to pass up.

Originally Posted by xSamhainx
Have my eye on Faith in Destiny, 13 bucks on Steam. That said, I never played Dragon Storm the original expansion. Maybe I should shift gears and play thru that instead of re-playing the original SF2 again, but the original is just too good to pass up.

I haven't personally played SF2 but a workmate of mine just played through the main game plus the expansion and FiD. He was extremely happy with the original game and the first expansion but FiD must have been a complete joke. He finished that "expansion" in just a few hours (one sitting) and he told me that his general approach to the game was to "milk" every map to the max. He was also disappointed that there was no final cutscene when he finished FiD. Apparently you just get dumped back to the main menu after finishing the final mission.
-> $13 for FiD might still be a bit on the pricey side for the little content you receive in return.

I've been playing through the original Deus Ex, which I haven't really played yet. I did try it a few years ago, but never got into it. Some time ago I finished Human Revolution which I loved. Aside from a few issues, it was great.

But now I can't seem to maintain interest in the original. On the plus side, it's got good level design and there's plenty to explore and stuff to pick up. On the minus it has awful AI and this often leads me to feel like I'm exploiting the game. Enemy sight range seems to be limited as hell that I can prance in front of them at some distance without them noticing.

Other than the AI it's decent I'd say and very similar to HR as far as I can tell. And I'm sure that if I were to have played this back in 2001 I would have liked it a lot. But now it just feels like a worse version of HR. Especially when it comes to story and dialog. I'm not sure if the game picks up later on and gets more story heavy, but it feels very skimpy. HR felt a lot more involved.

I know a lot of people played the game back in the day, and loved it, and I'll probably take some flack for saying this, but that's how I feel. I feel HR pretty much kept the gameplay from the original, but updated and improved everything else (story,voice-over,graphics,audio) and streamlined some gameplay.

I also have random black-screen issues with the game, and have to close it and start it up again to fix it. I've got the New Vision mods running with the DirectX 10 renderer and some other fixes.

Maybe I should have just played it back in the day. I feel bad because I constantly hear about how great a game it is. Btw, I'm only on the roof-tops mission, killing doberman dogs and trying to get at the Ambrosia canister, so I'm not that deep into the game. So if it picks up a lot please let me know.